Atheists, I've been thinking...?

Question

Yes, i think, don't be flabbergasted!
Who is yourself? Are you a body or a mind? or something higher? (Soul)

Why are you in control of that particular body? why weren't you created the other gender? why were you placed in this time period? Is this random? Why weren't you a fish? or a dog?

Conclusion: Is there a higher power that scrambles The identities (Souls) and chooses to Which body and era they belong?

Please answer only after careful thought of this issue, don't let pre-made judgement think for you.

Thanks.

Gandalf: Please explain.

rephrasal:

Why aren't you a medieval Mongolian dancer instead of a 21st Century man/woman?

I'm sorry, i should have used religiously-neutral terms (Replace sould with self-awareness or self conscienceness)

(Replace Created with whatever the hell you want!)

Relpace Soul****

Answer 1

I am me. My body is merely my vessel, but what I am truly I don't know. Spirit, soul, mind, whatever.

Don't know. Kinda wish I'd gotten a different one (taller) but I wasn't consulted.

Don't know to all but the last question.

As for the last, I don't believe so.

Answer 2

"Why are you in control of that particular body?"

Simply because I am. Why does there need to be a higher answer than that? Does there need to be a purpose?

"Why weren't you created the other gender?"

I wasn't "created" female because my father's sperm donated a Y chromosome, not an X.

"Why were you placed in this time period?"

I wasn't placed, I just am. Again, why does this need an explanation?

"Is this random?"

It would seem so. There is probably some sort of mathematical formula that defines it but who knows...

"Why weren't you a fish? or a dog?"

I think it should be painfully obvious that humans cannot give birth to fish or dogs.


"Conclusion: Is there a higher power that scrambles The identities (Souls) and chooses to Which body and era they belong?"

It cannot be determined simply by answering these rather random and non-sensical questions. That said, there is no evidence to suggest either way that what you are suggesting is the truth.

A neutral POV on a hypothesis with absolutely no evidence suggests that the hypothesis can be dismissed without a thought.

Answer 3

Atheism tends to operate on the lowest number of assumptions possible and having a soul is an assumption that cannot be shown in the data.

Let us back up a bit. First, let us accept as a definition that you and I are entities, limited only by the external constraints of the environment and the internal constraints created by our past experience and biology.

For you to be you, you must have your body. Who you are is very dependent on the physical form of you. For example, if you happen to be 6'7" there are likely to be very different experiences for you than if you were 4'8". If you are male, it will be different than if you are female. If your parents were Buddhists your past experiences will be different than if one were Jewish and the Muslim. You cannot separate your body from you.

I see the mind as our self-reflective experience of ourselves. Without a soul, and I doubt any atheist believes there is one, then you were not chosen for your body, you became you because of your body's specific attributes and your early environment.

There is also a very subtle idea that there is a creator. Let us assume you were not created but rather formed due to ordinary physical processess (and hopefully your parents enjoyed those ordinary processess). You could not have been a fish without some extraordinary genetic engineering that I doubt your parents would not have consented to.

Finally, if a soul exists then it should be durable, but there are literally tens of thousands of cases where illness or injury has altered a person's personality so fundamentally that an observer might think it was siblings with identical bodies rather than the same person. Your identity is a physical experience of your brain interacting with the world. It does not exist once you stop existing.

Just a thought on the idea of a creator. If the universe were created wouldn't it be well formed. For example, shouldn't the Earth be a sphere instead of having one hemisphere smaller than the other (the northern hemisphere isn't as big). Also, why do biological creatures not exhibit the same failure patterns as well engineered devices. Biological creatures suffer failures under what is called by actuaries as the bathtub curve. Only biological systems, systems built by unskilled amateurs and systems built by incompetant people fail using the bathtub curve. Why not create a universe where giraffes do not have to worry about a sore throat?

It is sufficient to accept that physical laws govern all things. If one accepts that then God ceases to matter even if He exists.

Answer 4

I am my mind, heart and soul. I consider my mind to be my intelligence and knowledge; my heart to be my emotions and instincts; and my soul to be the magical force that exists within all people. A soul contains part of your mind and your heart, but much of the first two are shaped during life.

I believe I have lived multiple times before. I believe that each time was for a purpose relating to my soulmate, but what exactly that purpose was I do not know. I believe some people repeat lives and others don't. It is not random; it has a purpose. I may well have been an animal in a previous life, but this I do not sense.

I believe it if Nature and the elements that determine this. Your spirit and body return to Nature when you die, and Nature learns about life though the experiences your soul had.

(By the way, I am not really an atheist. But since I do not believe in God, I will answer questions as an atheist. I follow no religion. My beliefs lie somewhere between Wicca and shamanism.)

Answer 5

Heh heh heh, I like you, you're one of the few 'believers' who actually seem to want to hear what others have to say...

I'm really more of an agnostic, but I don't think you'll be upset if I answer your question.

In short, no, I don't believe there is a higher power that etc, I don't believe there is a higher power at all. I am a body and a mind, certainly I feel the presence of a soul too, and I do have other spiritual beliefs. What I don't believe is that anyone/thing is in overall charge of it all, I guess that means I don't believe in fate. I think we're all part of something - people, other animals, plants, amoeba - but the nature of that thing is not known to me, and it's not something I feel I need to know.

I certainly understand why a lot of people find that "not knowing" too much to take on - and I certainly have my moments of feeling utterly overwhelmed too, but then again I have all sorts of odd thoughts which come and go.

I have no inherent quarrel with anyone who truly believes anything, but I have very little patience with people who use religion as an excuse to justify their own all-too human frailties.

Thanks for the question my friend (if I may be so bold!)

Answer 6

I’m in control of my body because i control my brain, which in turn controls the rest
I’m my self i guess, that question doesn’t make much sense.
I’m a mind and body, the 2 can’t function without the other.
I have a conscience part of my brain, that has feelings to things that go on, but its not a soul.
I was created a male, because that’s what the prominent gene was in my body.
I wasn’t placed in a time period, I was born in a time that is now.
I’m not a fish because my parents are human (hopefully you aren’t one)
The same goes for the dog,
No there is not a high power, you are who you are because your parents are who they are, and there families etc.

Answer 7

We are in this time period because that's when we happened to be born, and we aren't fish or dogs because our parents happened to be human and we developed with a human consciousness. We are in control of the body through the nervous system which connects the brain to every function. We are the gender we are depending on whether the X or Y chromosome is present at conception.

As for what consciousness and mind is, and "who" we really are, and why are we here... I have no idea.

We're still looking for that truth.

But when (if) we find it, the answer will be infinitely more satisfying than the mental cop-out of "god did it". Frankly I think Douglas Adam's satirical "42" as being the ultimate answer is far more compelling than something as childish as "god made it that way" (which answers absolutely nothing) could ever hope to be.

Answer 8

It's uncontrolled. Things happened this way simply because they didn't happen any other way. There is no 'why' to it, just an 'is'. There is no answer to the question why unless we invent an answer; we cannot discover one.

You conclusion presupposes the existence of a soul, which is far from proven. Even should a soul exist, there is nothing to suggest that a potential higher power has anything to do with it. The mention of a soul in the bible does not equate to a deity inventing one.

Answer 9

It's all random.

Consider this: imagine you are taking twenty six-sided dice and rolling them. After doing that, you could also say: Wow, why in the world did I roll actually THESE numbers? The chances for that are incredibly low! Is there a higher power that influenced the result? Why were not other numbers rolled?

All these questions would be idle, of course. When a random event occurs, it must have a result, and the question why this result is futile. That's the tricky thing with randomness.

Answer 10

Black hole: Good questions all. I don't think I've ever answered a question with more questions, but it's your presupposition that we HAVE a soul to begin with that makes this difficult to answer.

What is a "soul?" Is it an invisible bit of "you"? How does conciousness exist without form? Have you ever seen an alzheimers patient and how the being that is "them" fades (this makes me think "soul" is only a concept and the personality resides in the brain)? When does the soul enter a human? Does it grow, like an arm bud grows in the womb? If a fetus is miscarried, do they have a tiny soul? What about twins that split after conception - does the soul split too? What about when one twin is reabsorbed into the other twin in utero? What happens to the souls? When does it leave?

There are just an onslaught of "soul" questions once I presuppose a soul. Granted, I'd *like* to think I have one and live on past death. IT's just for that army of questions.

Answer 11

I think someone has spiked your pot supply man... Youre REALLY trippin hard now...

I am only a mind. Souls do not exist. The only reason I "am in control" of this body is because we possess a brain that has the ability to think of such daft ideas...if I wasnt in control of this body, I would cease to exist. I am nothing more than a brain that is able to think and be self aware. As for gender - for one, it isnt CREATED, as your post assumes. It was a genetic selection, based probably on the fact that the other blastocyte growing inside my mother at the time was a female (my twin sister). I wasnt placed in a time period - I ws born to parents who were born of others who happened to live during this phaze. Random? Hardly - time on earth is only linear. I cannot be born to parents who are already dead... And, Im not a fish nor a dog because neither of my parents were fishes or dogs...DUH!